Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 01:27:41 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: brett@peloton.physics.montana.edu (Brett Taylor) Cc: brett@lariat.org, wes@softweyr.com, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: volunteering (was Re: Ports) Message-ID: <199903100127.SAA19325@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903091447090.14956-100000@peloton.physics.montana.edu> from "Brett Taylor" at Mar 9, 99 03:02:44 pm
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> I've told you two times now there are plenty of ways to contribute by > maintaining ports. Hell, you don't even have to become the maintainer. > Take a port that doesn't work under 2.2.8 now due to the changeover to > ELF. Fix it so it works for 2.2.8 without breaking it for -STABLE. Make > a diff, send-pr to ports and get it committed. It's not that hard. You > don't have to ask anyone. You don't _need_ permission to go futz w/ the > port from the maintainer. You SHOULD submit your diffs to him before > doing the send-pr but that's not a big deal. If you want to be really > polite you would send an email saying "I'm trying to make this port work > for 2.2.8 wo/ breaking the -STABLE build. I'll send you any diffs when I > get this done." I seriously doubt that any maintainer would mind. Actually, I've often wondered what effort, if any, was given over to pushing FreeBSD patches back from the ports tree to the original maintainers of the code? It would seem to me that that would be a far more effective long term win, since it will mean that: 1) The patches don't get "stale" if they are rolled into the main source tree. 2) You don't have to depend on a port maintainer caring about your application of the port. 3) The code that results should maintain backward compatability across FreeBSD releases by virtue of not having release specific patches in it. 4) It offloads the maintenance onto the original source base, freeing up peoples time to do things like maintaining a backward compatability theme (if they care), doing more ports (if they care), or otherwise allowing them to pursue stuff that's more rewarding than getting yelled at on -chat. One thing that someone could contribute would be to go through the various patches, and roll them back (if they aren't just hacks) to the original maintainers. If someone did this, they'd be able to get the gratitude of both communities, instead of the ignomany of one. Brett? If you are still interested in volunteering on some code project, this would be one for which the powers that be could neither hinder nor veto. An excellent opportunity for a cowboy... Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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